Stigmata

This is an accepted version of this page Stigmata (Ancient Greek: στίγματα, plural of στίγμα stigma, 'mark, spot, brand'), in Catholicism, are bodily wounds, scars and pain which appear in locations corresponding to the crucifixion wounds of Jesus Christ: the hands, wrists, feet, near the heart, the head (from the crown of thorns), and back (from carrying the cross and scourging).

For over fifty years, St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians.

[5][6] Some cases have also included reportings of a mysterious chalice in visions being given to stigmatics to drink from or the feeling of a sharp sword being driven into one's chest.

[3] A relatively high percentage of stigmatics also exhibit inedia, claiming to live with minimal (or no) food or water for long periods of time, except for the Holy Eucharist.

His thesis is that stigmata result from exceptional poignancy of religious faith and desire to associate oneself with the suffering Messiah.

Differently from the Five Holy Wounds of Christ, some mystics like Francis of Assisi and father Pio of Petralcina reported a spontaneous regression and closure of their stigmata in the days following their death.

After his death, witnesses claimed the following: "When they had opened his tomb and they thought his body would stink because of the amount of time that had elapsed since it had been buried, such a sweet fragrant odor like a diversity of flowers flowed forth, and the whole church was filled with little drops of balsam.

The legend states that one morning, near the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, a six-winged angel appeared to Francis while he prayed.

And as his understanding sought in vain for an explanation and his heart was filled with perplexity at the great novelty of this vision, the marks of nails began to appear in his hands and feet, just as he had seen them slightly earlier in the crucified man above him.

The marks were round on the palm of each hand but elongated on the other side, and small pieces of flesh jutting out from the rest took on the appearance of the nail-ends, bent and driven back.

Moreover, his right side had a large wound as if it had been pierced with a spear, and it often bled so that his tunic and trousers were soaked with his sacred blood.

One complication of quartan malaria occasionally seen around Francis' time is known as purpura, a purple hemorrhage of blood into the skin.

[26] For over fifty years, Padre Pio of Pietrelcina reported stigmata which were studied by several 20th-century physicians, whose independence from the Church is not known.

The physician Angelo Maria Merla noted that the wounds were not tubercular in origin but could not make an official diagnosis without further tests.

[32] Giorgio Festa noted that "at the edges of the lesions, the skin is perfectly normal and does not show any sign of edema, of penetration, or of redness, even when examined with a good magnifying glass".

[32] Giuseppe Sala who worked as a physician for Pio between 1956 and 1968 commented that tests revealed his blood had no signs of abnormality.

[32] There were both religious and non-religious critics who accused Padre Pio of faking his stigmata, saying he used carbolic acid to make the wounds.

The historian Sergio Luzzatto recounted that in 1919, Maria De Vito (the cousin of the local pharmacist Valentini Vista at Foggia) testified that the young Pio bought carbolic acid and the great quantity of four grams of veratrine "without presenting any medical prescription whatsoever".

[38] Giorgio Festa, who examined the stigmata of the friar on October 28, 1919, wrote in his report that they "are not the product of a trauma of external origin, nor are they due to the application of potently irritating chemicals".

[48][49][50][51] There is a link between dietary constriction by self-starvation, dissociative mental states and self-mutilation, in the context of a religious belief.

[53][54][55] The psychologist Leonard Zusne in his book Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (1989) has written: Cases of stigmatism fall into two categories: self-inflicted wounds, which may be either cases of fraud or of unconscious self-infliction, and those that are caused by emotional states ... Self-induced (through autosuggestion) itching and subsequent scratching of which the individual is unaware is likely to occur in suggestible persons if the stimulus is a mental or actual picture of the Crucifixion used during meditation and if the main motive is to receive the stigmata.

[4] Harrison also noted that after Saint Francis of Assisi, the stigmata was "seen as a predominantly female experience" with the female-to-male ratio of stigmatics being 7 to 1.

Harrison argues that in many cases the stigmata was a consequence of the intense personal mystical ministries practiced by those excluded from the priesthood.

[40] In 2002, a psychoanalytic study of stigmatic Therese Neumann suggested her stigmata resulted from post-traumatic stress symptoms expressed in unconscious self-mutilation through abnormal autosuggestibility.

[63] Among the Warao of the Orinoco Delta, a contemplator of tutelary spirits may mystically induce the development of "...(imagined) openings in the palms of his hands.